Transponders suitable for RFID may be used for labeling objects, to establish and to verify an identity of a person and to recognize objects provided with other transponders appropriate for RFID. Basically, a transponder may include an electronic circuit with a processor, a data storage capacity, a radio frequency (RF) interface and high frequency (HF) interface, respectively, which couples an antenna to the electronic circuit. Said transponder may be accommodated in a small container. Depending on the requirements made on the deployment concerning, for example data transmission rate, energy of the interrogation, transmission range, etc., different types of transponders suitable for RFID may be provided. A data provision and transmission capability may use frequencies ranging from direct current (DC) to daylight, including suitable frequency windows (e.g. around 134 kHz, 13,56 MHz, 860-928 MHz etc.).
Transponders suitable for RFID may be divided into active and passive transponders. Passive RFID transponders may be activated by transponder readers suitable for RFID which generate an interrogation signal, for example a RF signal at a certain frequency. Transponders suitable for active RFID may also comprise their own power supplies such as capacitors, batteries or accumulators for energizing.
Payment and ticketing applications are considered as one of the most important emerging usage areas that will leverage in RFID technology. For instance, a portable terminal such as a mobile phone implementing a RFID transponder or RFID transponder emulating means may be utilized to provide/present a digitally coded or electronic ticket, which has been obtained before, to a ticket checkpoint system of an entrance of a public transportation system. Said digitally coded ticket is read out by corresponding RFID reader, with which a checkpoint system is equipped, and is analyzed thereby. In case of a validity of said digitally coded ticket, the access to the public transportation system is granted to the owner of the portable terminal.
In combination with the above-mentioned technology, the usage of smartcards is growing steadily. Modern smartcards provide an application developer with a secure and tamperproof environment for developing high value, secure and complex applications. Furthermore smartcards may include a central processing unit as well as secure memory areas avoiding or preventing unwanted access by third parties. Besides, cryptographic means may be provided within a smartcard, which opens the deployment of smartcards for secure applications like banking or even personal identification applications.
Smartcards may create a secure environment for storing items of monetary value while the contactless feature is fast and convenient for users who only need to bring the card in close proximity to a card reader. These types of contactless cards also do not require a Personal Identification Number (PIN). Users of the card can load a value onto the card by using an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), Voice-box or a kiosk to transfer money from a checking account, savings account, a credit card account or by inserting cash into the ATM. Many merchants are installing contactless smartcard reader/writers in their stores to provide the ability to accept smartcards as a form of payment. Also, smartcards may be used in connection with credit card and debit transactions with dynamic value, for instance.
The idea of adding a smartcard into a mobile phone or a user device in combination with a contactless reader/writer is already known in the state of the art. However, actual embodiments of smartcard phones or mobile phones having an integrated or detachable secure smartcard module respectively does not provide the user with a full control interface.
As a smartcard/secure smartcard element (SE) module may be arranged with a terminal controller (MCU) and NFC interface in connection with other elements within a mobile device there may be an interest for the MCU to access information related to applications stored in the SE substantially immediately after a transaction procedure has been completed so that the MCU can gather information regarding to applications that have been accessed by an external reader.
In a current implementation suitable for RFID based payment and ticketing there are no means for a RFID/NFC device terminal controller (MCU) to monitor, to influence or to control data communicated between an external RFID source and the secure smartcard module during the transaction procedure. Reasons for such an implementation include delay and/or security aspects that might arise when relaying the communicated RFID data through the MCU when conducting in smartcard communication.
Thus, the MCU is not capable of knowing what transactions are actually ongoing, were performed, or whether the transactions were successful or not in order to provide for example a transaction status to a user of the terminal. Also, when a mobile terminal device switches NFC communication from an external reader to a Secure Chip (SC) or a Secure Element (SE), the MCU has no means to track which applications are used on the chip. This information would be advantageous in connection with providing branding functions so that the MCU could provide an indication to the user through terminal user interface (display, loudspeakers) relating to the particular application involved with transaction procedure. Furthermore, current SE operating systems do not provide sufficient means for the user or the MCU to control the visibility of different applications. For example, the user may want to have his/her bus ticket being visible all times and the credit cards being visible only when requested so, and the MCU may be programmed to make certain applications visible based on detected environmental conditions, such as, for example detecting the presence of a bus ticketing machine or determining that current location corresponds with a local bus stop.
Therefore a motivation exists for providing the MCU with a means suitable to acquire information from the secure smartcard module regarding to applications stored in the secure smartcard substantially immediately after a transaction procedure has been completed.